The brochure price was set a year ago
Last autumn you built the costing for next season's Dalmatian coast tour: seven nights across three hotels, a coach for five days, a boat day, a local guide in Split, some included dinners. The spreadsheet has a column for each cost, a per-head calculation at your expected passenger number, and a margin that set the brochure price.
Since then, one hotel has increased its rate for the peak weeks. The coach company quoted per day and has now added a charge for the driver's accommodation. The guide fee went up. The exchange rate moved. Each change was agreed by email and probably noted somewhere, but the costing spreadsheet still shows last autumn's numbers, and it assumes sixteen passengers when most departures are running with twelve.
Costing is done once per tour, but costs belong to each departure
Brochure costing works at tour level with an average passenger number. Actual costs happen per departure: this hotel at this date's rate, this coach for these days, this number of passengers. The link between the two is manual.
- Supplier rate changes are agreed by email and not fed back into the costing.
- Fixed costs (coach, guide, tour leader) are spread over an assumed passenger number.
- Seasonal rates differ by date, but the costing uses one rate per hotel.
- Currency costs are converted at the rate on the day the sheet was built.
- Nobody compares expected costs with supplier invoices after the tour.
How you manage currency or price risk is a matter for you and your financial adviser. What we fix is the visibility.
Margin you find out about too late
A departure that looked profitable in the brochure costing can run at a loss when passenger numbers are low and supplier prices have crept up. If you knew in advance, you could merge departures, change a hotel for next season, or adjust the price of dates not yet sold. Finding out from the accounts months later removes all of those choices.
It also makes planning next season harder. Without a clear record of what each departure really cost, next year's brochure price is based on the same old spreadsheet.
A costing that follows each departure
We build a costing layer that combines your supplier rates with live departure data.
- Supplier rates are held as records: hotel rates by date band and room type, coach rates by day and extras, guide and entrance fees, each with currency and valid dates.
- Rate changes are entered as new versions with the email attached, so the history is kept and the costing updates.
- Each departure costs itself from its own dates, hotels, services and live passenger and room numbers from your booking system.
- Fixed and per-head costs are separated, so the departure shows the cost per passenger at today's numbers and the break-even number.
- Foreign currency costs use a rate you set in the system, updated when you choose, so everyone works from the same assumption.
- After the tour, supplier invoices from your accounts system (such as Xero) are matched against the expected costs and differences are listed for review.
| View | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Departure costing | What this date costs at current numbers |
| Margin by departure | Which dates are below the margin you want |
| Rate history | When and why a supplier price changed |
| Actual versus expected | Where supplier invoices differ from the costing |
| Tour summary | How the tour performed across the season |
Deciding with the numbers in front of you
At the weekly operations meeting, the margin view shows three departures below your target. One is low on passengers and close to the minimum, which is a decision for the departure review. One has a hotel that raised its rate, which is a conversation for next season's contract. One has an unusual coach charge, which turns out to be an error in the quote.
When planning next year's brochure, you start from what each departure really cost, not from last year's assumption.
Signs your costings are out of date
- The costing for each tour was built once and not updated.
- Supplier price rises live in email threads.
- Departure margin is only known after the accounts are done.
- Currency costs are converted at an old rate.
- Supplier invoices are not compared with what you expected to pay.